


Paint

by Rock_Girl19



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, It's overly poetic don't hate me, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Minor Violence, Religious Intolerance, this is like two years old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 08:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16133798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rock_Girl19/pseuds/Rock_Girl19
Summary: "Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”-Genesis 9:16





	Paint

Red is the colour of his coat. The crumpled jacket hanging off a wiry frame, rustling as his arms lurch from side to side. Scarlet hides on the edges of glasses too big for his face, magnifying eyes which catch mine a second before we collide. Tinges appear on his cheeks, my stammered apology overshadowing the scorching skin from the briefest of touches. When at last he talks, what tumbles out of his mouth is a burr of the North which leaves me wondering how he can babble so many words while still finding time to breathe.

 

He scrawls a phone number on the underside of my arm with a biro brighter than my face . Then leaves, not boasting the seductive smirk he first captivates me with, but hiding a toothy beam under his drawn-up hood.

 

The charred explosion of failed tomato pasta is splattered across the kitchen when he greets me for our first date.  Later, as the faded tartan of a blanket must have been tucked around my dozing form, I can only imagine how tongue poked between teeth as he failed to stifle a laugh. Maroon lines the pattern of a jumper he insist I keep ,  blossom s through poppies he plucks from the local park on the rare day I feel too ill to duck into the corner of a coffee shop.

 

By the time my flu fades away, leaves burnt to a crisp orange litter the pavement. He drags me, grinning and spluttering, across bridges and  swamps of sand and tree roots.  I see amber light projected against the still bright sky , warning ships of rocks hidden beneath murky waters. Sea air whips our stinging cheeks as we clamber across  rocks slippy from moss to reach the edge of the world; a precipice we teeter on the edge of, perched precariously amid our tangled limbs. Fragile humming accompanies my vain effort to count the  cinnamon-dustings of freckles across the bridge of his  crinkling nose. Whirlpools of sea air groan at the sight of his fingers swirling through my tangles of hair. In the misty reflection of his  glasses I see the sun begin to dip behind the horizon, thick dabs of paint being flung on the undersides of clouds. What was once blue is now torched; burned by heat radiating out from the flushed globe dangled perilously across the water. Clouds tumble through every shade of gold, but all too soon the fireflies are a brighter light than the sky ever was. 

 

Yellow is everywhere, but in the most fragile ways. It’s in the soon faded twang of a ukulele being tuned; the sound reminding me of summer days as I gaze out to rain crashing vertically from charcoal clouds. It’s under the faded mess of his holey converse which were glued to his feet until rain seeped through the frays, condemning him to a week of sneezing, sore throats and yellow-tinged skin. When the mug slipped from his hands after I first called “I love you,” it was canary ceramic shards which we found buried in the crevices of tiles for days afterwards. Yellow was a sanctuary that didn’t last.

 

By the time it fully fades, forest green adorns every door. Drowning under a patched quilt of snow and slush, the grass of the fields lies in wait of warmer months. We decorate the tree together, tying each other in knots of garish tinsel which is flung on anyway. I see a twinkle in his eye when I find emerald mistletoe hanging from every corner, barely concealing the musty damp of his new apartment. Green is how he paints the walls, but it’s also in my mother’s eyes when I stumble home at four in the morning. It’s all over her disapproving glances when I smile as no-one watches, remembering time washing over me as the clocks whir silently in his arms. Green reappears when I least expect it, in the snarl of the Father as his icy stare fixates on me at Mass.

 

Blue is the colour of him; his eyes the electric hue of a shattered sky on a day warmer than now. Blue is lips numb from cold and breath rising in vapour too thick to see through. It is callous fingers locked together in protest of prying eyes at the bus stop, eyes that roll in haughty condemnation before the lashings of sharp tongues screeching “faggots” like a call from the underworld we surely belong in. Their insults loom behind us as we race to the only place I can call home, to be met by dusty veins of mould on bread. Sky turned a midnight velvet is our sanctuary; a promise of lost days being begrudged by nights that whirl past in a haze of laughter and fading notes from a piano. We dive amongst stars, forgetting the splitting headaches of piling work and malicious parents for a night which is over too soon.

 

Purple. The sight of it brings me crashing back to earth. It’s everywhere; coiling his neck, his arm, his stomach… ugly fingerprints stamped permanently, dark as night against drawn skin and pristine hospital sheets. Both time and my feet drag by as I stalk the hospital corridors, desperately arming myself with  wine-coloured grapes and sickly smelling flowers , waiting for news that never arrives.  Costumes a deep indigo swam ghosts of nurses who march past with scraped back hair and sallow skin.

 

I return to the house, not home, where my mum still lies in wait. Packing is merely the flinging of clothes into a worn rucksack with  eyes like deep wells trained on me from the doorway. Pellets of rain hammer the window, thrown from swarms of electric clouds.  Purple is my mum’s face; molten from tremors of insanity, flecks of spit flying from the edges of her mouth . She becomes water boiling over the edges of a pot; wildly gesticulating, a gaping face, soon flitting to the sound of a broken record; gulping, grating sobs racking her body while her face remained a tearless mask, followed by a snarling wolf high on the scent of a feast. 

 

Seconds pass. Flashes of pain a searing white.  She leaves throbbing rings round my eyes as I stumble, blind, out of the house.

 

Violet emerges slower than the funeral march which thrives only in my nightmares.  Pools of sunlight gradually drip down the edges of the door every morning, and recede back across his face and up the wall  with every sunset .  Splayed shoots of lavender are a riot of washed-out colour ;  a mere plaster over the gaping wound of turmoil and pain . I’m tied to his bedside, watching his  bruises fade through every shade of puce  and mauve before one eye can open just a slit. Clumsy sentences are woven as slurred, stumbling speech spills from his mouth.

 

His apartment is stale from still air and floating dust trapped in the light of an opened door. Our mornings are spent gazing out to the cool breeze of  tree blossom and pale skies and heather and flowers. Ticking breaks the silence we are too scared to fill, as any trace of happiness leaves behind  the taste of Parma Violets; artificial, overpowering and sickly sweet.

 

Lilac piercing the sky on a cool spring dawn is left unnoticed as he wakes from the suffocating depths of a nightmare, sobbing as the newspaper on our doorstep crumbles in the rain, ink dripping onto chalky pavements. Tonight I find him teetering on the edge of the doorstep with all the stability of a rag doll and a trembling half-empty bottle of vodka in his hand.

 

Lilac is the lining of  his red coat left hanging in the doorway; waiting, waiting, for a trace of breeze.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much if you got this far!
> 
> This is my first fanfic so constructive criticism would be really appreciated! If you like, please drop a comment down below.


End file.
